Front door with a POP of color

My sister bought her first house. On the walk through with her- she mentioned that she hated the inside of the front door. Instead of having her trash it and start over, I offered to fix it and polish it up! The previous owners had dogs, and they definitely did a good number scratching up this beautiful door.

Now normally I stain wood- but this project isn't for me. And my sister and I decided a nice bright color would really make the area stand out. We tested out a few samples before we bought our paint. The color we ended up with was Ralph Lauren Hotel Du Cap. We got a quart- and we probably only used half of it.

I sanded down the entire door and side panels. I evened out the scratches- some by sanding, others by filling with wood puddy. Then- started painting!

The color is somewhere between a blue and a green- the lighting really changed the way the color of the door looks like in the above pictures. All around- it definitely makes the entry way stand out!

Dining Room Chairs

I have ALWAYS loved fabric dining room chairs. I think it adds an extra bit of elegance to the dining room. However, I was hit by reality when I saw how much they cost. A single chair like this one below ranges anywhere from $100-200! My husband and I recently bought our dining room table for $18 and restored it (see that blog here)- so we felt a little silly spending $1000 on chairs when we spent less than $20 on our table. So, I thought I would try my hand at a little upholstering. After all, how hard could it be?

 

 

Haha, boy, was I in for the longest but most rewarding project to date! So here was my inspiration:

 

 

I found these beauties on - where else- craigslist. I got a set of 6 for $150. The foam and seats were in very good condition. The fabric was also in good condition- however, it wasn't the style I was looking for. The wood was a bit scratched, and could use some fixing.

 

So, as always, I first started by sanding down the legs of the chairs. Unfortunately, do to it's great detail on the front two legs, I had to do a log of hand sanding- but in the end, it was smooth and scratch free. Then I stained it to match by dining room table

 

 

Then I added polyurethane on it- to protect it and give it a shine.

 NEXT: Tackle the upholstering. I really wanted white tufted chairs... so I after a lot of research, my mother and I attempted our first tufted top chair. I covered buttons with my fabric with a kit from JoAnn's Fabric. One way to tuft (so we thought), is to pinch the fabric together to get it to make the diamond lines. However, the OCD in me did not like the way this chair turned out. It was hard to replicate, and each chair was looking slightly different than the first. I wanted it to be unified- and this way wasn't cutting it. So again, we stripped the chair fabric and started from scratch.

After more research. my husband proposed actually cutting the foam underneath so the fabric would have somewhere to sit when we tufted it. He also recommended added wood to the back of the chair so the buttons would have something to hold it's tension against

 Doing it this way, I was able to create a mold so each chair could have the buttons and lines in the same exact spots (much more unified!). And adding the wood to the back allowed the buttons to push in farther to the back of the chair and stay there.

So after drawing the pattern I wanted, I used a heavy crafting knife to cut the holes (for the buttons) and the lines (for the fabric).

Then we drilled holes into the wood where the string for the button needed to go through.

I used heavy hemp like thread to thread the buttons through the chair and through the wood. Because there was a large hole where the drill was, I need to use something to stop the thread from just falling back through the hole. So I wrapped the thread through a button, and tied it off that way. This made button tight into the foam and helped force the fabric to tuft where we wanted it to.

As I placed the button, I would also grab the fabric and tuck it into the slots we cut out. This ensured I had enough fabric for each diamond tuft. After all the buttons were in and the fabric were in the proper creases, I stapled along the back of the chair.

This picture shows the previous tuft versus the new tuft

 Then I attempted upholstering the bottom of the chairs. Some of the bottoms of the chair needed repair of it's base- I had to take the cushion off completely and restaple burlap webbing back into place. I then restapled the foam and batting down. Thankfully the foam and batting were in good condition for all the chairs so I simply reused them.

 

 I used fabric tacks instead of staples for areas that would always be seen.

And then- I repeated and repeated and repeated!

 For the BACK- there are probably a million better ways to do this. I couldn't use a tack strip because it's a straight metal rod- and my edges for the back were not straight. What would be the best thing to use is a flexible metal tack strip like these, however, they are a bit expensive.

Instead, I had extra cardboard tack strip laying around in my house. I ripped and shaped the cardboard tack strip into the shape of the back of the chair and hot glue gunned it onto the fabric. I then folded the fabric over the tack strip as to create my hard edge. I then hot glue gunned the back onto the chair (again, not ideal- but it worked!). I sealed the seam with decorative tack strips.

Then I scotch guarded the whole thing- and they're ready to be used! (I still have a few left to finish, so photo with the chairs and table together to come!)

Dining Room Table

My husband and I went to Savers (a secondhand store) not looking for a dining room table.... but fell upon this beauty! For $18, it was hard to pass it up. There were a lot of scratches, but I knew those could be fixed. It was solid wood, had the ability to extend, and was huge! I knew it was worth a shot.

 

 

FIRST: I sanded the table. If you like stripping wood chemically, that's perfectly fine- I just find it's faster to sand wood to it's natural color. I also had a lot of scratches and dents that I wanted to sand down to an even level.

 

 Thankfully most of this table was flat, so I was able to use a sander to strip the entire table, including the bottom!

 

NEXT: I stained it a dark color. Dark stains are always more forgiving, especially if some of your scratches or stains don't come out with sanding.

HINT:  Remember, when staining- add the stain with a clean cloth - allow it to dry 5-10 min - then wipe it down with a clean rag. You may have to do the table in sections so you can wipe off the stain in a timely fashion. The more coats of stain you do and the longer you let it sit, the darker the stain will be.



 

THEN: I used polyurethane on the entire table. I decided to use a water-based polyurethane so I could do several coats in one day (it dries faster, but you have to me careful in applying it, versus oil based polyurethanes).

 

 

Here's a picture to show you what the table looked like before and after the polyurethane. There are many ways to seal your stain- polyurethane usually gives it a shine. Research all the other methods (i.e. varnish, shellac, and lacquer) and find which one you like best. I am a bit partial to polyurethane.

And voila- it's finished and ready for use. Next project- making some chairs that match this table.

My Mother's Buffet Table

I loved my mom's buffet table, but it has seen better days. She was getting rid of it, so I asked if I could have it. It had cracks and a lot of damage on top. The drawers did not open because the whole middle was warped in a downward slope.

I started by sanding- it's always good to get it down to a clean slate. It also helped me analyze the cracks that I had to repair.

 

Then I added some glue in some of the cracks, and patched the areas up with wood putty. Then, more sanding!

 

 

Here's a few before and after pictures of some of the very damaged areas.

 

Final pictures of the top stripped, repaired, and sanded.

 

NEXT: The Drawers and shelves

The middle had no support, so it was warping and distributing the weight unevenly onto the bottom drawer. Here are some pictures showing that the bottom of the drawer was coming apart because of the poor support and uneven weight from above.

 

So, I stripped the buffet of it's previous shelves and previous drawers. I repaired the middle post to create better support for the middle of the buffet. I then built new shelves and new drawers- I liked the key hole features that were on each drawer, so I decided to keep the face of each draw and just replace the surrounding wood.

 

 

FINALLY: After the drawers and shelves were created. I continued to sand and strip the piece to it's bare wood.

 

 

I then stained it with a dark stain and added polyurethane.

Then brought it in the house and put it to use!